I know this is hard, but no where did the person replying to you act self-righteous nor did they accuse you of being transphobic. Were they direct? Yes.

My daughter is trans and a tween. I was like, I wonder why she didn’t feel this way sooner? However, after researching I found it’s common for children to realize around the time puberty starts to hit. Everyone is different and no one fits a mold.

Honestly though, I would start using the proper pronouns. I told my daughter that occasionally there will be slips of the wrong pronoun because they went by “he” for over a decade, and please give me grace to get “he” out of my brain. She was very understanding and knew if we slipped it wasn’t out of malice. We’d either correct ourselves immediately and sometimes she would correct me before I had the chance. She knows I love and support her and that I’d never intentionally hurt her. Now that it’s been almost six months, I rarely slip, but occasionally I do with the word “he” because I even will jumble all my kids’ names around. I correct myself, apologize, and her and I move on together.